A four-day event designed to spotlight and celebrate entrepreneurship in Iowa is coming to Des Moines Sept. 28 through Oct. 1.
Iowa Startup Week is organized by a group of 25 to 30 local volunteers and has a leadership team of Kaylee Williams, Safiya Lee-Evans, Tej Dhawan and Diana Wright.
The agenda will include a Best of the Midwest pitch competition on Oct. 1 at Hoyt Sherman Place,as well as cocktail hours, invite-only dinners and other programming.
The Best of the Midwest pitch competition will be open to any startup in the Midwest region in the fields of bioscience, advanced manufacturing, or software-as-a-service, Williams said.
Organizers will select 10 founders in each category to give live pitches during Iowa Startup Week. One winner will be chosen from each to pitch at Hoyt Sherman Place on Oct. 1 for a cash prize, she said.
Bioscience, advanced manufacturing and SaaS will also guide the programming held throughout the week, including a keynote presentation on each topic.
Williams said entrepreneurship is at a critical juncture right now because it’s never been easier to build a business online.
“A lot of the barriers to entry that used to exist around product development, programmatic skills, they don’t exist any longer, or they’ve been greatly reduced,” she said. “And so we’re seeing what I would call everyday entrepreneurs popping up all over and part of the reason we wanted to do this event is to capture that lightning and try to help these early stage builders get access to the ecosystem that we already have so they can surround themselves with the mentors that they’ll need to grow.”
Examples of everyday entrepreneurs are people who are generating code with AI, also known as “vibe coding,” to solve problems in their everyday lives, Williams said.
“And what we really want to push more Iowans into thinking is, ‘OK could this be a business?’” she said.
Williams said a lot of people don’t know about the resources available to entrepreneurs in Iowa.
“I think we’re entering into a golden age of entrepreneurship, and Startup Week is designed to be an inflection point for a lot of everyday entrepreneurs in Iowa who maybe don’t even realize what they have, what they’ve developed and what they could do,” she said.
Lee-Evans said organizers will invite people from Iowa and surrounding states to attend Iowa Startup Week, with the hope that about 2,000 people will attend throughout the week.
“We really want to make this a collaboration between all of the Midwest states, not just Iowa,” Lee-Evans said. “And I think that way, we’re really going to broaden the scope of the event, the types of founders and investors that come along to the event, and also the types of founders and startups that apply to the pitch competition.”
Organizers would like to see more entrepreneurs and startups in Iowa, Williams said. And she hopes that education helps fast-track the process.
“We really hope that every attendee walks away with meaningful connections to help their startups grow with things that they’ve learned,” she said. “This is meant to be an educational event. We want them to walk away having learned some new information about AI or their industry, or how to close their first customer or make their first hire, how to fire an employee. These are all important parts of building a startup company that you have to learn. And a lot of times, founders are learning them the hard way. … But we have so many people in the state who have done it before. What if we brought them in and gave them a platform to share their stories, their failures and their successes?”
Tickets will be available May 1at iowastartupweek.com. Discounts are available for founders and students.
This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Safiya Lee-Evans.